Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/50

 subject has engrossed more or less of the thoughts of many of the best chemists. Some have even carried their speculations so far as to advance the theory that there is but one universal kind of matter, appearing in different forms; but all theorizers would do well to imitate Faraday, who, incessantly theorizing, yet considered his theories worthless without experimental support. Faraday himself, not long before he died, was engaged upon experiments looking toward the transmutation of the metals. Study and experiment are the only means by which we can attain our end; and let us remember, that while the alchemist labored to obtain wealth for himself, the chemist of this day has as his nobler object the increase of human knowledge, and therefore the benefit of all mankind."

Let us glance a moment at crystals. A snowflake is a crystal, so is a quartz rock; a granite boulder is a crystal, so is a diamond; and the only difference between them is simply a different arrangement of their respective particles, which, too, accounts for the apparent difference of the several constituents that compose them. Now, one human being differs, materially, morally, and in all other respects, from another, only by reason of a slight difference in the arrangements of the material crystallic points or atoms that go to make up the man; and, while two men may, generally, resemble each other, yet, specifically, they may be very far apart or dissimilar, simply and only because one man is made up of multi-angular atoms, — coarse, gross, unrefined; while the other is composed of higher, finer, or more ripe and ascended points, cells, crystals, and atoms. Ambition, love, taste, appetite, passion, capacity, energy, power, — all depend upon the more or less perfection of these particles, and their chemical completeness or ripeness. Let me illustrate this point familiarly: Two drops of semen are, so far as human chemistry is concerned, precisely alike; yet one shall be the germ of a genius, the other become a Hottentot, murderer, knave, fool, politician, or some such human nuisance. Again, chemical conditions determine future organism. Starved cattle cannot produce superior offspring; unripe seeds bring forth sickly plants; while well-fed John and happy Betsey have finer children than half-starved Tom and Sarah, even though the latter have the advantage, on the score of refinement. Again, ripe semen produces ripe children. It cannot ripen in the body